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Introduction
About File Compressor
Download and Installation
Using File Compressor
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

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Introduction

I always like to think of PowerPoint as a glue that holds disparate media together -- these media elements include sound, movies, pictures, clip art, and animation clips. Judiciously used, these elements can make your presentation look good -- but they can also dramatically increase file sizes.

Converting the entire presentation into a Flash SWF may help -- but then you end up losing the ability to edit your presentation. Optimization software is the solution -- and there are many such programs available. The newest of them all is PPTshare File Compressor -- this allows you to optimize presentations using different compression levels.

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About File Compressor

File Compressor is from PPTshare, company based in New York, USA that also creates several other products such as Desktop Slide Manager. You can download a free trial version of File Compressor from their site...

File Compressor optimizes and saves your PowerPoint presentation to a new file so that the original PowerPoint file is left unaltered. PPTshare compresses the graphics and embedded documents contained in the presentation -- the optimized presentation can be then sent through e-mail with a single click.

My contact at PPTshare for this review was James Ontra - thank you, James.

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Download and Installation

Download the installer from the link given above, run the setup routine and follow the instructions. You'll end up with an PPTshare File Compressor program in your Windows Start menu, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: The PPTshare File Compressor Start Menu Group

When you run it for the first time it will ask for your registration details.

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Using File Compressor

When installed, follow these steps to compress a PowerPoint file using File Compressor.

1. Launch PPTshare File Compressor -- the interface is shown in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: PPTshare File Compressor interface
   
   
2. To add a presentation, choose the Add Files, or for multiple presentations click the Add Folder button. (see Figure 3).
   
   
   Figure 3: Add a presentation, or a folder full of presentations
   
   This opens a new dialog box from where you can select the presentations that you want to compress.
   
   Note: Multiple presentations can be opened and optimized at one go.
   
   
3. The added presentation(s) will be listed under the Presentations to compress list, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: Presentations to be optimized
   
   There are other sections within the PPTshare File Compressor interface, which are explained below:
   
   
   1. Presentations to compress -- the presentations which you want compress can be seen here
   2. Adding Files -- these set of buttons allows you to add single and multiple files to the compress list, to remove the files choose Remove button.
   3. Save Compressed Presentation as -- Choose to save the compressed presentations in a particular folder.
   4. Compression Levels -- Provides four compression levels for different output qualities. Custom compression opens the Compression Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 5 -- this enables you to tweak compression settings for images.
      
      
      Figure 5: Compression Settings
      
      
4. When all the settings are in place, click on the large Compress button. Depending upon the settings, the application will compress the presentation(s) and shows the changes in Results window (see Figure 6). The compression may take a while.
   
   
   Figure 6 : Optimized presentation(s)
   
   In this window you can see old size, new size, and reduction percentage of the presentation. The other options in the same dialog box are to:
   1. E-mail a presentation
   2. Zip and e-mail a presentation

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Pricing and Support

PPTshare File Compressor costs $ 45 for a single-user license, discounts are available for multiple-user and educational licenses.

Support is complemented by a online FAQ.

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Conclusion

For what it does, PPTshare File Compressor is a capable product that's priced at the right price:performance ratio.

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